How to Read T. F. Torrance : Understanding His Trinitarian and Scientific Theology

by Colyer, Elmer M.

• ISBN13: 9780830815548
• ISBN10: 0830815546
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Intervarsity Pr

Table of Contents

Preface	11	(15)
Introduction	15	(2)
My Encounter with Torrance's Theology	17	(2)
The Purpose of This Book	19	(2)
Torrance's Theological Vision	21	(4)
A Guide to the Chapters That Follow	25	(10)
The structure and important features of this book	25	(3)
An overview of the contents of the book	28	(7)
Torrance's Life & Achievement	35	(20)
Childhood Years	36	(1)
Early Education	37	(1)
Graduate Studies	38	(2)
A Year in the States	40	(1)
The War	41	(1)
The Postwar Period	42	(1)
Professor in Edinburgh	43	(3)
Academic Societies	46	(1)
Ecumenical Endeavor	46	(1)
Honors and Lectureships	47	(1)
Recent Publications	48	(3)
The Man Behind the Persona	51	(4)
PART I: THE GRACE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
The Mediation of Christ: Homoousios, Hypostatic Union, Atonement	55	(42)
Torrance's Rejection of Dualism	57	(4)
The Mediation of Christ Within Israel	61	(9)
The prehistory of mediation in Israel	61	(4)
Christ within the matrix of Israel	65	(1)
Mediation of revelation	66	(1)
Mediation of reconciliation	67	(3)
The Inner Relation of Christ to God: Homoousios	70	(11)
The homoousion	70	(3)
Homoousios and revelation	73	(1)
Homoousios and a dynamic, ontological, trinitatian revelation	73	(2)
The homoousion and a revolutionary doctrine of God	75	(2)
The homoousion and the canon of Scripture	77	(1)
Homoousios and reconciliation	78	(3)
The Person of Christ as Mediator: The Hypostatic Union	81	(3)
Divine and human	81	(1)
Hypostatic union	82	(2)
The evangelical and doxological perspective	84	(1)
Incarnational Redemption: Christ's Atoning Reconciliation	84	(13)
The unity of Christ's person and work	84	(2)
The Latin heresy: A ``gospel'' of external relations	86	(2)
Personal and ontological redemption	88	(1)
The precise nature of vicarious atonement	89	(3)
Atoning exchange	92	(2)
The range of Christ's atoning redemption	94	(3)
The Mediation of Christ: Christ's Vicarious Humanity	97	(30)
Israel and the Covenanted Way of Response	98	(2)
The Vicarious Humanity of Christ	100	(13)
Christ's vicarious humanity and revelation	102	(1)
The Word of God assimilates the creaturely human word	102	(3)
The apostolic word, the communicable form of God's Word in history	105	(2)
Christ's vicarious humanity and the New Testament Scriptures	107	(2)
Christ's vicarious humanity and reconciliation	109	(4)
Christ's Vicarious Humanity and Our Human Response	113	(4)
Faith	113	(1)
Conversion	114	(1)
Worship	115	(1)
Evangelism	116	(1)
The Logic of Grace	117	(10)
Anhypostasis/enhypostasis	118	(1)
The relation between divine and human agency	119	(8)
PART II: THE LOVE OF GOD THE FATHER
The Love of God the Father Almighty	127	(29)
Access to the Father	129	(10)
Torrance's questioning of natural theology	129	(5)
Access to the Father	134	(3)
The evangelical and doxological perspective	137	(2)
The Person, Love and Being of God the Father	139	(12)
The Person of the Father	139	(4)
Language for God	143	(3)
The love of God the Father	146	(3)
The being of God	149	(2)
God the Father Almighty	151	(5)
Not abstract omnipotence	152	(1)
Christological qualification of God as almighty	153	(1)
The sovereign freedom of God's almighty power	154	(2)
Sovereign Creator, Contingent Creation	156	(55)
The Sovereign Creator	158	(10)
God was not always Creator	159	(2)
God wills not to exist for himself alone	161	(1)
God the triune Creator	162	(1)
The creative activity of the Father	162	(1)
The creative activity of the Son	163	(1)
The creative activity of the Spirit	164	(1)
God's providence	165	(3)
The Contingent Creation	168	(5)
Creation ex nihilo	168	(1)
The contingence of creation	169	(1)
The intelligibility of creation	170	(2)
The freedom of creation	172	(1)
The Human Creature	173	(9)
A unitary concept of humanity: body and soul	174	(1)
The enigma of the human creature: dignity and depravity	175	(1)
The human creature as person in relation: the image of God	176	(4)
Humanity, priest of creation	180	(2)
Natural Science and Theological Science	182	(10)
Beneficial influence, hidden commonality	183	(1)
The rational unity of the universe	183	(1)
The contingent rationality of the universe	184	(1)
The contingent freedom of the universe	185	(1)
Other examples of crossfertilization	186	(3)
Reasons for the influence and commonality	189	(2)
Dialogue, convergence and transformation	191	(1)
A Reformulated Natural Theology	192	(19)
The matrix of a reformulated natural theology	193	(1)
Rejection of traditional natural theology	194	(5)
A reformulated natural theology	199	(2)
A reformulation of the main point of the cosmological ``argument''	201	(2)
Dualism effaces the universe's subtle reference to God	203	(1)
The new science undermines epistemological and cosmological dualism	203	(8)
PART III: THE COMMUNION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit	211	(31)
A Biblical, Evangelical/Doxological and Trinitarian Approach	212	(4)
God Is Spirit and the Holy Spirit Is God	216	(5)
Spirit is used of God in two senses	216	(1)
The Spirit clarifies the doctrine of the Father and Son	216	(2)
The internal relation of the Spirit to the Father and the Son	218	(1)
The Spirit as the presence and freedom of God	219	(1)
Two implications of the Spirit as Lord and giver of life	220	(1)
The Mutual Mediation of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit	221	(12)
The coming of the Spirit at Pentecost is mediated by Jesus Christ	221	(1)
The Spirit is mediated to us through Christ's vicarious humanity	222	(1)
The Spirit is mediated to us only after Christ's ascension	223	(1)
The coming of the Holy Spirit mediates Jesus Christ to us	224	(1)
The Spirit unites us with Christ	224	(1)
The Holy Spirit and revelation	225	(2)
The Holy Spirit and Scripture	227	(3)
The Holy Spirit and reconciliation	230	(1)
The Holy Spirit and our human response	231	(2)
The Procession of the Holy Spirit	233	(9)
Homoousios and the deity and personhood of the Spirit	234	(1)
Perichoresis and the Holy Spirit	235	(1)
The divine monarchy and the Holy Spirit	236	(2)
The procession of the Spirit	238	(4)
The Church, the Body of Christ	242	(43)
The Genesis of the Church	244	(7)
Israel, the people of God under the old covenant	246	(2)
Jesus Christ and the genesis of the new form of the church	248	(1)
The church's genesis in the person and ministry of Jesus	249	(1)
The rebirth of the church in the risen Jesus	250	(1)
The Church as the Body of Christ	251	(7)
The church as the body of Christ	252	(1)
The church and the deposit of faith	253	(2)
The primacy of the body of Christ over issues of organization	255	(2)
The church as the correlate of the Trinity	257	(1)
The Marks of the Church	258	(4)
The oneness of the church	258	(1)
The holiness of the church	259	(1)
The catholicity of the church	260	(1)
The apostolicity of the church	261	(1)
The Sacraments	262	(10)
The one baptism common to Christ and his church	263	(3)
The paschal mystery of Christ and the Eucharist	266	(3)
The God-humanward movement	269	(1)
The human-Godward movement	270	(2)
The Royal Priesthood	272	(13)
Christ's royal priesthood	273	(3)
The royal priesthood of the whole church	276	(3)
The ordained ministry	279	(6)
PART IV: THE TRIUNITY OF GOD & THE CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY
The Triunity of God: One Being Three Persons	285	(37)
The Genesis of the Doctrine of the Trinity	286	(15)
The approach to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity	286	(1)
An evangelical/doxological and rigorous scientific approach	287	(1)
The mystery of the Trinity and the necessity of open concepts	288	(1)
On the way to Nicaea/Constantinople	289	(2)
Stratified conceptual levels in the doctrine of the Trinity	291	(2)
The evangelical and doxological level	293	(2)
The theological level	295	(3)
The higher theological level	298	(3)
Being as Communion: One Being, Three Persons	301	(7)
The approach	302	(1)
The ``I am'' of Yahweh	303	(2)
The ``I am'' of Jesus and God's trinitarian being	305	(2)
The relation of God's one being to the three divine persons	307	(1)
Persons in Relations: Three Persons, One Being	308	(6)
An onto-relation concept of person	308	(4)
Being for others: mutual loving and indwelling	312	(2)
Perichoresis: Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity	314	(8)
The concept of perichoresis	314	(1)
Perichoretic wholeness, a circle of reciprocal relations	315	(1)
Perichoresis and distinctions within the Trinity	316	(1)
Perichoretic coactivity of the Trinity	317	(5)
The Integration of Form in Theology	322	(53)
The Fundamental Axiom of Torrance's Theology	322	(3)
The Integration of Form from Descartes Through Kant	325	(6)
Isaac Newton	326	(2)
David Hume	328	(1)
Immanuel Kant	329	(2)
The Integration of Form in Einstein and Polanyi	331	(14)
Albert Einstein	332	(2)
Michael Polanyi	334	(1)
The tacit dimension	335	(1)
Indwelling the field of inquiry	336	(1)
The integration of form	337	(1)
Perceptual integration as a model	338	(2)
Fusion of form and being, integration of form in knowing	340	(2)
Personal knowledge	342	(3)
Scripture and the Integration of Form in Theology	345	(18)
The scientific status of theology	345	(1)
Dualism in modern theology and biblical studies	345	(4)
Toward a holistic, integrative, theological approach	349	(2)
The integration of form in theology	351	(1)
The role of the church in theology	352	(4)
Scientific theology	356	(3)
The role of tradition in theology	359	(1)
Examples of the integration of form in theology	360	(2)
The nature of doctrine	362	(1)
The Nature of Truth	363	(12)
The relation of language to being in theology	363	(2)
The nature of truth	365	(3)
Justification and authority in theology	368	(3)
Doctrinal criticism	371	(1)
Jesus Christ: The way, the truth and the life	372	(3)
Selected Bibliography of Thomas F. Torrance's Theology	375	(6)
Reader's Guide	381	(6)
Name Index	387	(2)
Subject Index	389